Can We Talk About the Mooch?

Anthony Scaramucci is already a star in our ongoing national drama. He should be careful not to upstage the president. The Mooch jumped on Twitter last night to decry "the leaks," a constant complaint within the White House's paper-thin walls. White House reporters will tell you many of those mystery leaks actually come from senior staffers, which Scaramucci echoed when he seemed to accuse White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus of releasing his financial disclosure form. Not only that, the Mooch claimed that was a felony, and that he was getting the FBI on the case.

Scaramucci soon deleted that tweet, perhaps when he learned that, actually, financial disclosure forms are meant for, well, disclosure, and they can be accessed by the public. A Politicoreporter filed a request with the Office of Government Ethics to get his—no leaks necessary. (Elsewhere, Kellyanne Conway described the forms as "demoralizing," perhaps because any kind of transparency—particularly around money and conflicts of interest—seems to be a real bummer for this White House.) But having accused the White House chief of staff of a felony, the Mooch had to do some damage control. So he rejoined CNN's New Day this morning after a lively appearance yesterday to continue trying to bond with host Chris Cuomo about being Italian and from New York (that is verbatim) and to explain that he just "loves the president," OK?

We'll leave aside the demands to "be nice" and to respect the office of the president, and all the talk about how much he loves a president he once derided as a "hack" who should "bring it" during the campaign. This is about The Leaks, after all. As the Mooch put it, he and Priebus are like brothers, so they're "rough on each other," but maybe they're the Cain-and-Abel kind of brothers? That doesn't sound promising. Scaramucci seemed to imply that because journalists "know who the leakers are" and reacted as they did to his tweet—namely, by assuming he meant Priebus was The Leaker—that meant Priebus was probably The Leaker. He then invited Priebus to come out and say he isn't The Leaker.

"Let me tell you something about myself," Scaramucci said, immediately after coyly implying something about his colleague on national TV, "I am a straight shooter."

He then explained how he and the president have determined who The Leakers are:

"It's absolutely completely and totally reprehensible," said the Mooch. "As you know from the Italian expression, the fish stinks from the head down, but I can tell you two fish that don't stink, and that's me and the president. I don't like the activity going on in the White House. I don't like what they're doing to my friend."

It increasingly seems like the Trump administration is trying to jettison as many people as possible without actually firing anyone. That's best exemplified by the ongoing Jeff Sessions melodrama—which, if it ends with Sessions somewhere other than the attorney general chair, would have a whiff of obstruction of justice but would also be a major win for America. And now it's happening with Priebus. While Sessions, Priebus, and others in the administration may well be thoroughly incompetent or functionally destructive, this doesn't seem like the most Straight Shooter method of getting rid of them, particularly from a guy who got famous by enthusiastically firing people on TV.

Not to worry, though: The Mooch explained how we should all be behaving, and why we should "honor the job," by citing the behavior of a moral exemplar. He summoned...Joe Paterno?

Scaramucci really quoted freaking Joe Paterno about honor. This is really the stupidest of times.https://t.co/lAhlm2kgq7

You can see why Trump was so eager to get Scaramucci on board. He is a fantastic character, like if a Goodfellas persona escaped into your Netflix queue and sweet-talked his way into House of Cards. He makes for phenomenal TV and cranks out headlines. Yes, he has no regard for facts or the good of the country, but he toes the only party line there is anymore: He defends the president. Always. Actually, those last couple things go hand-in-hand.

That ceaseless defense of the head honcho—which doubles as a convenient intra-White House power play—apparently carries over into private, where the Mooch is apparently taking on Priebus, The Leaker, in other ways:

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